White-mage is doomed - and why

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Originally Posted by Pyitoechito

Are you referring to Divination? Current Divination also requires "Can only be executed after obtaining three Seals of Arcana by playing at least three arcanum."

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Yes. Maybe I remember wrong, because I have not played the game that much after corona.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

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Using your exact same numbers lets compare to other healers. (I don't play ast so I won't even try to make sense of that one)

Whm 4k+3500+666, but they get 3 free casts in minute one and then 4 in minute 2 with the two added lilies, misery and another TA charge. So their outgoing mp is a little wonky and yes this means not using lilies and sitting on TA will punish your mp economy heavily. Lets average it 3.5 free casts a minute at the cheapest cost so 1400 not spent. (negative 234 with pom)

Sch 4k+3500+2000. (negative 100mp)

Sge 4k+3500+1500+333 if you use rizomata on cd. For some reason their dot is 600 and pneuma also costs 600 on a 2m cd. (negative 767mp)

Heaven help them (both barrier healers) if they run out of stacks and actually need to cast a gcd heal since there isn't a way to mitigate that lost cost like thin air would, and raises will be even worse. Plus they're forced to dump mp on something since no gcd is ever free. I think you're vastly undervaluing casting higher cost abilities for free.

It seems like they all run on the negative in some way shape or form so I don't see this as a whm only problem, its a role problem. Guess its about time to invest in piety and avoid spellspeed like the plague.

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Originally Posted by MsTanya

Heaven help them (both barrier healers) if they run out of stacks and actually need to cast a gcd heal

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then you start considering what mp-neutral tools every healer has.

For aoe whm gets
1 medica ii from thin air (700 heal potency /min)
2 lilies/min (800p/min)
1 asylum every 90s (466p/min)
the extremely unreliable assize 533 p/m which could very well be 0
and 1-3 procs of plenary indulgence. 200-600p/m
2166-2566 aoe heal per min
2699-3099 if assize gets to coincide with damage

sage for aoe gets
physis: 700p/min
2 kerachole: 1000p/min
1 ixochole w the remaining stacks if kera is always on cd: 400p/min + rizomata 266p/min
physis ii: 333p/min
panhaima: 450p/min
pneuma (?) technically costs 200 more mp: 200p/m

3149 aoe heal per min, 3349 if you wanna count pneuma

before sage even considers using a gcd heal, rhey first have to exhaust their myriad of off globals. Whm has fewer and on a longer cooldown to boot, and has to rely more on gcd heals if incoming damage is that strong.

only real advantage whm has is raising in thin air, but ast can do the same and end up with more mp than whm anyway...

It blows my mind that AST's GCD heals are still cheaper than WHM's. They were initially cheaper in 3.0 because they were weaker. Then Square learned how undertuned AST was, and eventually buffed their GCD heals to be just as powerful as WHM's; I don't think there's a single kit-equivalent heal between WHM/AST where AST is weaker anymore. But the MP cost is still lower. On the healer that has a hilarious crapload of oGCD heals and so barely needs to dip into their GCDs at all. As opposed to the healer that's "supposed" to be the "GCD healer", which is doubly punished more heavily for GCD healing by both losing more damage and costing more MP for...GCD healing.

Madness. Nonsense job design.

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Heaven help them (both barrier healers) if they run out of stacks and actually need to cast a gcd heal since there isn't a way to mitigate that lost cost like thin air would, and raises will be even worse. Plus they're forced to dump mp on something since no gcd is ever free. I think you're vastly undervaluing casting higher cost abilities for free.

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The other healers also have far more oGCDs, on shorter cooldowns, and have to GCD heal less frequently. Doesn't completely make up the difference, but it's one of the many, many reasons why WHM is so craptastic and is literally -never- meta.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

then you start considering what mp-neutral tools every healer has.

For aoe whm gets
1 medica ii from thin air (700 heal potency /min)
2 lilies/min (800p/min)
1 asylum every 90s (466p/min)
the extremely unreliable assize 533 p/m which could very well be 0
and 1-3 procs of plenary indulgence. 200-600p/m
2166-2566 aoe heal per min
2699-3099 if assize gets to coincide with damage

sage for aoe gets
physis: 700p/min
2 kerachole: 1000p/min
1 ixochole w the remaining stacks if kera is always on cd: 400p/min + rizomata 266p/min
physis ii: 333p/min
panhaima: 450p/min
pneuma (?) technically costs 200 more mp: 200p/m

3149 aoe heal per min, 3349 if you wanna count pneuma

before sage even considers using a gcd heal, rhey first have to exhaust their myriad of off globals. Whm has fewer and on a longer cooldown to boot, and has to rely more on gcd heals if incoming damage is that strong.

only real advantage whm has is raising in thin air, but ast can do the same and end up with more mp than whm anyway...

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Well yeah I'm well aware they have tons of ogcd tools, even without dipping into their healing of any kind they still run at around 800mp deficit. I was speaking solely on the mp front, not trying to compare healing toolkits at all.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

It blows my mind that AST's GCD heals are still cheaper than WHM's. They were initially cheaper in 3.0 because they were weaker. Then Square learned how undertuned AST was, and eventually buffed their GCD heals to be just as powerful as WHM's; I don't think there's a single kit-equivalent heal between WHM/AST where AST is weaker anymore. But the MP cost is still lower. On the healer that has a hilarious crapload of oGCD heals and so barely needs to dip into their GCDs at all. As opposed to the healer that's "supposed" to be the "GCD healer", which is doubly punished more heavily for GCD healing by both losing more damage and costing more MP for...GCD healing.

Madness. Nonsense job design.



The other healers also have far more oGCDs, on shorter cooldowns, and have to GCD heal less frequently. Doesn't completely make up the difference, but it's one of the many, many reasons why WHM is so craptastic and is literally -never- meta.

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Yeah I'm oblivious to astro I tried it on release it was awful then it got buffed and I think I speed leveled it to cap for the magic title and never touched it again. 3.0 astro left me hating the job forever. That's the entire point I was trying to make though, whm is basically being forced to be a gcd healer with the way their kit works but like I replied to the guy above I was solely comparing the mp differences and noting that whm isn't zomg doomed when you utilize everything that's designed into the job to conserve mp.

You mean blowing lilies and eating a damage loss for it? Yeah, that's...a way to conserve MP. Further funneled through your asstastic MP economy to utilize your punishment-disguised-as-reward system because they couldn't even be bothered making any of the healers' job systems actually damage neutral or a gain as a *gasp* reward for using them. God WHM is so terribly designed.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

You mean blowing lilies and eating a damage loss for it? Yeah, that's...a way to conserve MP. Further funneled through your asstastic MP economy to utilize your punishment-disguised-as-reward system because they couldn't even be bothered making any of the healers' job systems actually damage neutral or a gain as a *gasp* reward for using them. God WHM is so terribly designed.

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I mean yeah it doesn't feel great but the tools to maintain a somewhat neutral mp are there, as garbage feeling as it is to do it. I hope they do address some of these issues though. I was only trying to be positive and say hey maybe not so doomed or at least not alone in the suffering.

Didn't Square get rid of Accuracy because it was a boring, obnoxious "you must be this tall to ride" stat that didn't feel good to meld and didn't feel impactful outside needing to slap a specific number on your gear in order to approach combat effectively? I wonder why that suddenly came to mind.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

You mean blowing lilies and eating a damage loss for it? Yeah, that's...a way to conserve MP. Further funneled through your asstastic MP economy to utilize your punishment-disguised-as-reward system because they couldn't even be bothered making any of the healers' job systems actually damage neutral or a gain as a *gasp* reward for using them. God WHM is so terribly designed.

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Every lily is theoretically 113,3 potency loss. Less if you use Misery on raidbuff windows. Theoretically that is 226,7 potency lost every minute. It is kind of similar what scholar lose by using Aetherflow on indo/sacred soil etc.. But ofc for SCH that is optional while for WHM it is demanded, if you wanna sustain mana after seven and half minute.

Ya, accuracy sucked. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if SE had have bothered to update healer gear with more built in acc each tier, but they didn't =/

As a system it probably could have been made to work with some time and tuning though. Ensuring that your next cast always hit after a miss would have done wonders for making it a less frustrating system for example. Back to back dot misses on Living Liquid were hugely irritating.

Perhaps even adding it as a combo stat alongside piety would have been an option to explore if it was still around today.

I find this thread funny in a sense. There are way too many assumptions going on here for any of it be able to be discussed in such a direct way. First, the topic of Lillies. Who says it will remain a Dps loss ? If healers, in general, will be forced to use more gcd heals, using Lillies becomes very optimal for Whm to do. Not only does it advance towards the Blood Lilly it also costs no mana. Helping to aid in the issue and resulting not in a DPS loss, but a DPS gain and MP gain. If fights are tuned to require healers to cast more GCD heals, then WHM's issues discussed in this thread disappear. And since we do not know if this will be a fact or not, it's a possibility on an equal level of what is being discussed here so far. So to say it's DOOMED is far too premature.

Beyond that, so what if this would force WHM to desire different gear pieces for its BiS than the other healers. I only see this as a good thing overall, so what if WHM needs to value Piety more? We have a similar situation with the tanks with WAR. Perhaps WHM does not want Spell Speed at all, I know other jobs do not want it. And if you put the Spell Speed that might benefit other healers, into Piety instead for WHM what does that do for material selection? I would guess very little in the end. With the change in Cast time for all healers to make them in line with Astro from weaving is now a breeze for all healers, this benefits WHM's lack of weaving options in the past making it a more solid pick compared to the past.

And Lillybell is an amazing spell, I do not understand at all the gripe against it. As an SCH main I would have loved to have that spell. Preemptive planning before unavoidable dmg, before raid aoe, or before specific mechanics makes it THE best AOE heal in the game by far. Trivializing the need for other spells to be used for you or your healing partner makes it a huge tool for someone who knows when to use it raising the sealing for the potential of WHM. Thin Air nerf certainly impacts the playstyle of WHM if compared today, but it does by no means make it so White Mages are doomed. Until we see the Raids, we have no way of telling. And in lower difficulties then that WHM shines so no problem there. So this thread is premature. Until we see how the Stat Squish impacts healers as a whole in content, until we see to what level of actual healing do we need to do to keep everyone alive is required, talking about DPS as the main focus is foolish. We optimize our DPS uptime based on predicted incoming damage. Let's see THAT before we can raise legit complaints about the viability of a healer in content.

[QUOTE=Zhevons;5698492]Preemptive planning before unavoidable dmg, before raid aoe, or before specific mechanics makes it THE best AOE heal in the game by far.

Makrocosmos would beg to differ. Lily bell is useless for tankbusters, deals no damage, and lasts 15 seconds. Yes, it’s healing potency potential is strong, but it’s limitations make it, in my opinion, the weakest healer capstone skill.

Why would forcing more GCD heals magically turn lilies into a DPS gain? That's...not how math works.

And Piety is a dead stat that provides nothing other than a kit mana starvation tax. Which is why it sucks.

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Originally Posted by Zhevons

And Lillybell is an amazing spell, I do not understand at all the gripe against it. As an SCH main I would have loved to have that spell. Preemptive planning before unavoidable dmg, before raid aoe, or before specific mechanics makes it THE best AOE heal in the game by far. Trivializing the need for other spells to be used for you or your healing partner makes it a huge tool for someone who knows when to use it raising the sealing for the potential of WHM. Thin Air nerf certainly impacts the playstyle of WHM if compared today, but it does by no means make it so White Mages are doomed. Until we see the Raids, we have no way of telling. And in lower difficulties then that WHM shines so no problem there.

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400 potency is 1 Medica cast and that is far from enough to trivialize any oncoming Raid wide damage; either the WHM or their Cohealer is going to need to supplement it with some other heal in order to actually bring the party out of the danger zone of getting killed by the next Raid wide. As a result, Lilybell is just a slightly more potent PI. Ironically, if Thin Air wasn't nerfed, PI+Cure 3 would heal for the same potency as Medica+Lilybell but because WHM can't rely on Thin Air anymore, it's more MP efficient to use Medica+Lilybell now so we literally only replaced one combo of GCD+oGCD heals for another all because of the nerf to WHM's MP economy. Lilybell is also not available in low level content like any of the current Ultimates so WHM is just screwed there entirely.

But at least its pretty, right? I wonder if MCH can burn it with Flamethrower so people can see how crap it actually is instead of arguing that its some god tier spell when its literally only a 2nd charge of PI in terms of functionality.

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Originally Posted by Zhevons

Not only does it advance towards the Blood Lilly it also costs no mana. Helping to aid in the issue and resulting not in a DPS loss, but a DPS gain and MP gain. I If fights are tuned to require healers to cast more GCD heals, then WHM's issues discussed in this thread disappear.

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having experienced firsthand what awful mp economy is like from playing astro since the beginning of shb, the worst part of bad mp economy is not the uptime till out of mana, but how incredibly strict and punishing it is. unplanned healing or raising (you only get one thin air every 60s!!! surely nobody messes up more than once per min during prog, right?), or even dying at all in a fight means youll run out of mp very soon. for a healer thats ostensibly"newbie friendly" and easy to prog with, the mp economy is going to make mistakes feel a lot worse


im not saying whm is going to be like, irredeemable. it really just needs a small buff to its mp economy. making assize restore 500 more mp would solve almost all the issues.

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Originally Posted by Zhevons

First, the topic of Lillies. Who says it will remain a Dps loss ?

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The past ~5 years of Savage content says it'll be a DPS loss.

I'm inclined to believe it, we've been here before getting whispers and hints of more healing requirements. Could we actually see it this time? Will it be enough to offset all the extra healing abilities that have been dished round the other roles in a worrying flashback to all the other utility we once had? We'll find out soon enough at least =(

And as mentioned below, Lilybell is going to be mighty against Timults and such. J kick, Titan stomps, that kind of stuff will be it's bread and butter. The problem is that it lacks the versatility of Macrocosmos. MC will work to it's full power in mechanics like Hello World, tank busters, lights rampant, lions rampant etc. It's practically akin to applying a persistent Earthly Star with a 20 yalm CU that can still be fired whenever you want within it's duration. The only question mark I have about it is if it's secondary trigger ability is also a GCD cast or if it becomes an instant oGCD.

Meanwhile Lilybell won't be anything like as effective on Hello World style mechanics where the healer might not be getting smacked in sync with the rest of the raid, nor does it have value as a tool to deal with tank busters. It's literally a dumbed down version of Earthly Star that trades control for raw potency and a whopping cooldown.

Except even it's potency isn't actually that great over the course of a fight, it just has the potential to front load a ton of potency in a short window against a very specific type of mechanic. Get hit once with Lilybell down, that's 1200 potency. Get hit twice? 1400 potency. That's typically what you're going to see outside of mini 'enrages' at the end of some fights. Meanwhile an AST has laid down 3 Earthly Stars for 2160 potency combined in the same time.

It's a neat addition but there's no way that it's cooldown is justified. It should be dropped down to 2 minutes IMHO. MC is the better ability for 90% of the fight.

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Originally Posted by Zhevons

I find this thread funny in a sense. There are way too many assumptions going on here for any of it be able to be discussed in such a direct way. First, the topic of Lillies. Who says it will remain a Dps loss ? If healers, in general, will be forced to use more gcd heals, using Lillies becomes very optimal for Whm to do. Not only does it advance towards the Blood Lilly it also costs no mana. Helping to aid in the issue and resulting not in a DPS loss, but a DPS gain and MP gain. If fights are tuned to require healers to cast more GCD heals, then WHM's issues discussed in this thread disappear. And since we do not know if this will be a fact or not, it's a possibility on an equal level of what is being discussed here so far. So to say it's DOOMED is far too premature.

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Even if we need more GCD heals and a WHM has to use their entire lily stock to heal, AST will heal that same damage for free with oGCD's. Lilies will always be a dps loss because comparatively their competitor (AST) heals the same, or more, without any potency loss at all. If we need even more GCD heals, WHM will be worse off because it will have to exhaust all their lilies (each one a potency loss), then dip into Medica II's (310 loss). AST on the other hand will cover a larger bulk at 0 potency loss with their huge range of oGCD's, then if they have to dip into AspHelios, they're only losing 250 potency a cast.

Sadly, yet again WHM will only shine if there's barely anything to heal. Then they can lean on their co-heal to take care of the bulk of the damage and save their lilies for downtime where the boss can't be targeted, or blow their lilies between pulls in dungeons.

For being the healiest healer whm really doesn't want to heal the majority of the time and they're worse at it then ast which is funny. Whm has got to be the worst design job in the game. No identity, nothing they excel at except maybe stack healing, no movement tool, nothing in it's healing kit is actually unique, it's DPS abilities are just washed out balls of light, and no gameplay loop of any kind. It's sad to see one of the most iconic jobs in final fantasy not have anything from it's past games that made them unique or anything in FFXIV that is unique.

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Originally Posted by Acece

For being the healiest healer whm really doesn't want to heal the majority of the time and they're worse at it then ast which is funny. Whm has got to be the worst design job in the game. No identity, nothing they excel at except maybe stack healing, no movement tool, nothing in it's healing kit is actually unique, it's DPS abilities are just washed out balls of light, and no gameplay loop of any kind. It's sad to see one of the most iconic jobs in final fantasy not have anything from it's past games that made them unique or anything in FFXIV that is unique.

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exactly ,like every final fantasy game had the healer jobs be a must in parties with a variety of spells and skills.
whm iconic defensive spells : shell, protect, reflect actually were life saving spells even when he was not healing he actually tribute the party by casting his defensive buffs to help survive and even save from death his party.
he had over abundant selection of healing spells such as auto-life, cure, cura, curaga, esuna, dispel, regen and only near the end of the game at the higher level would he unlock one of the most destructive spells in existence : "holy" but until that even without said spell white mage was actually a vital member in a party and that is only 1 of the healers examples.

however white mage in ff14 is basically a shell of an iconic job, made to only be mocked by the dev team really and its not just him its the entire healer role in general.
you have an amazing lore for each healer and you expect the job would have a kit to reflect said lore and show its major theme while paying tribute to the franchise but how can you think those healer kits are actually expressing said stuff and keep the talk about "healers are fine, healers are ok" when they are clearly not and to make matters worse only keep getting worse and worse from negligence from the devs.

nothing in the spells in EW actually has a solid thought given to them that say: "hmmm, i can see the job casting that spell". examine each spell individually and you will see that they are basically been thrown, just to say "here ,you exist so we gave u scrap ,enjoy" and the devs actually expect us to buy that pathetic excuse.
sorry but i don't buy it and if they actually played one of the healers job they would actually know how transparent their lack of caring is shown by actually saying those are your changes.

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Originally Posted by CrimsonGunner

whm iconic defensive spells : shell, protect, reflect actually were life saving spells even when he was not healing he actually tribute the party by casting his defensive buffs to help survive and even save from death his party.

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Sure, but maintenance buffs are also typically really, really dull in multiplayer games.

Compare those against the more situational nature of, say, early Stoneskin.

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however white mage in ff14 is basically a shell of an iconic job, made to only be mocked by the dev team really and its not just him its the entire healer role in general.

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But the "iconic job", too, is largely a shell for basic throughputs and the most generic or (only types A-F versions of the same thing) among defensive utility...

Cure, Libra, Silence, Protect, Mini, Cura, Confuse, Blink, Esuna, Curaga, Reflect, Berserk, Arise (Rez), Holy (typically w/o stun or AoE), Dispel (enemy buff purge), Dia (DoT + defense down), Banish (generic damage, +50% to undead), Blind, Shell, Sneak, Invisible, Poisona (Antidote), Cursna, Reraise, Barsleep, Barsilence, Barpoison, Baraparalysis, Baraero, Barthundera, Barpetra, Barfira, Barwatera, Barblizzara, Barvira, Stone, Stonera, Haste, Hastra, Protectra, Shellra... 6 different teleports, several Recalls, Flash, Addle...

It's an eclectic mess.

I'm not saying they've done a good job with WHM in XIV -- they haven't -- but many the risk-taking involved in a late maintenance (de)buff refresh or the like is going to hit very differently in a real-time multiplayer game than in turn-based single-player, and WHM has never had much depth or identity once those fall out of the picture.

It's been a tentative, imaginable space only (one which, honestly, HW WHM probably captured, for its time, better than any other game's take on the job).

FFXIV must take creative license to make anything of that "iconic" base. They need to do a better job, obviously, but merely 'staying faithful' is not going to cut it.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Sure, but maintenance buffs are also typically really, really dull in multiplayer games.

Compare those against the more situational nature of, say, early Stoneskin.


But the "iconic job", too, is largely a shell for basic throughputs and the most generic or (only types A-F versions of the same thing) among defensive utility...

Cure, Libra, Silence, Protect, Mini, Cura, Confuse, Blink, Esuna, Curaga, Reflect, Berserk, Arise (Rez), Holy (typically w/o stun or AoE), Dispel (enemy buff purge), Dia (DoT + defense down), Banish (generic damage, +50% to undead), Blind, Shell, Sneak, Invisible, Poisona (Antidote), Cursna, Reraise, Barsleep, Barsilence, Barpoison, Baraparalysis, Baraero, Barthundera, Barpetra, Barfira, Barwatera, Barblizzara, Barvira, Stone, Stonera, Haste, Hastra, Protectra, Shellra... 6 different teleports, several Recalls, Flash, Addle...

It's an eclectic mess.

I'm not saying they've done a good job with WHM in XIV -- they haven't -- but many the risk-taking involved in a late maintenance (de)buff refresh or the like is going to hit very differently in a real-time multiplayer game than in turn-based single-player, and WHM has never had much depth or identity once those fall out of the picture.

It's been a tentative, imaginable space only (one which, honestly, HW WHM probably captured, for its time, better than any other game's take on the job).

FFXIV must take creative license to make anything of that "iconic" base. They need to do a better job, obviously, but merely 'staying faithful' is not going to cut it.

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again try and read what i wrote, as i said those spells in ff games were used much more and were actually needed and even though you consider them a shell for basic throughputs and the most generic, it does not change the fact that they were and are buffs that actually helped in those games.
like it or not they are a classic whm which despite being basic, was a strong staple in a group at any ff game.

and yes maintaining buffs or even debuffs might not be interesting to you but again it doesn't mean it wont be fun for another and also we have 3 healer that suppose to cater to different playstyles so giving whm creative space could bring something new while still honoring the classic, not necessary maintaining those spells as they are but maybe give them additional interaction or maybe have them work slightly differently then the original versions.
either way we both agree they need to do a better job and yes staying faitful is not going to cut it ,they need to think stuff through but as i said if they actually wanted to ,they could create a whm that is good and fit ff14 while still honoring his other iterations in a way.

problem is they don't care T_T

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Originally Posted by Zhevons

And Lillybell is an amazing spell, I do not understand at all the gripe against it. As an SCH main I would have loved to have that spell. Preemptive planning before unavoidable dmg, before raid aoe, or before specific mechanics makes it THE best AOE heal in the game by far. Trivializing the need for other spells to be used for you or your healing partner makes it a huge tool for someone who knows when to use it raising the sealing for the potential of WHM. Thin Air nerf certainly impacts the playstyle of WHM if compared today, but it does by no means make it so White Mages are doomed. Until we see the Raids, we have no way of telling. And in lower difficulties then that WHM shines so no problem there. So this thread is premature. Until we see how the Stat Squish impacts healers as a whole in content, until we see to what level of actual healing do we need to do to keep everyone alive is required, talking about DPS as the main focus is foolish. We optimize our DPS uptime based on predicted incoming damage. Let's see THAT before we can raise legit complaints about the viability of a healer in content.

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I was going to use the current raid tier to highlight why Lilybell, while a decent ability, is nowhere near as hype as you're making it out to be. How fortunate for my example, Cloud of Darkness literally shows why.

The most practical use would be during Empty Plane at the 4:24 mark as Deluge immediately follows. Except Deluge is at 4:39, exactly fifteen seconds later. Therefore, Lilybell is rendered entirely worthless save for a single heal as its present duration will expire just before the actual hit. What if we use it at the beginning? You'll again run into the same issue, where Lilybell is held back by its short duration. Furthermore, it'll conflict with your co-healer's toolkit. Earthly Star, for example, handles the open set of mechanics, and will always be prioritized due to its damage component much in the same way Assize is. Granted, we may no longer see a WHM/AST pair but Sage handles it easily with Pneuma, Panhaima, Holos, Drouychloe or Ixochole, all of which are essentially free since enough time passes between damage for Sage to regain Addergall.

Throughout the entirety of Cloud, there is not a single point where Lilybell doesn't result in a massive overheal or simply isn't practical because the WHM won't be taking damage. For a 180s cooldown, that isn't exactly hype even if Lilybell has some worthwhile use. It's simply thoroughly outclassed by Macrocosmos, and even falls short of Pneuma and Protraction to some extent.

Lilybell isn't bad per se; it'll certainly find its niche. Not to mention, a free Medica is still free healing. What makes it underwhelm is the WHM having to take damage and it's duration both in CD length and how long it lasts. One could argue making the heal slightly less potent but removing all the aforementioned restrictions would make it significantly more worthwhile. As it stands, it'll mostly slot in as our Cure III replacement due to Thin Air's nerf.

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Originally Posted by CrimsonGunner

and yes maintaining buffs or even debuffs might not be interesting to you but again it doesn't mean it wont be fun for another and also we have 3 healer that suppose to cater to different playstyles

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I'm not opposed to buffs on WHM just for their being buffs.

But neither is 'had buffs' whenever virtually every backline supporting caster 'had buffs' a decent basis for identity.

"Honoring the classic" merely gave us an additional GCD cost after rez in which to put up Protect. Sure, we could reduce Protect's duration so that isn't so 'cast once and forget about it until the target's death', but would that be any more... fun? At best, it'd give us some faint thing to do during downtime... while taking up valuable button space for a modest to-be-maintained defense bump.

Alternatively, if the "Protect" or "Shell" or "Reflect" that you wish to have honored are not meant to function as they did before, why call them that? And what becomes the issue with the likes of Stoneskin or Benison or any other means of protecting against, shelling against, or potentially even reflecting some more immediate and timely amount of damage? (Though, let's be clear: if anyone deserves a reflect, it would probably be SCH or, at a pinch, SGE, not WHM.)

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they could create a whm that is good and fit ff14 while still honoring his other iterations in a way.

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You do see how vague (to the point of meaningless) this is, yes?

What specifically is it from WHM's other iterations that you think WHM should uniquely lay claim to (in exclusive possession or in advantaged iteration), as opposed to SCH, SGE, or AST? Most of what exists in its previous iterations are not going to be "good and fit" in FFXIV, and merely 'having buffs' is not going to suddenly generate further WHM identity unless it goes some different way with them (which prior iterations can only differentiate as far longer duration and/or "less interesting than on SCH/AST/SGE").

its clearly your not trying to even read a sherd of what i wrote but even so i will indulge you and answer your questions.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'm not opposed to buffs on WHM just for their being buffs.

But neither is 'had buffs' whenever virtually every backline supporting caster 'had buffs' a decent basis for identity.

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a decent basic for identity is not up to just you to decide ,there are support who sole basis for identity was giving different buffs to teammates and a gamestyle can be based on it. the solid example is bard classes from different games that focus on songs that gives different buffs to their members, if you prefer a simple style like theme you can take sona from league of legends or look at how bard mains wished to have their songs actually give buffs as they used to in the past and have a gameplay style based on their own songs. an decent basis for identity can be "have buffs" just cause you don't see it or find it fun ,does not mean it cant be and again you have multiple healers don't like it move to the next one.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

"Honoring the classic" merely have us an additional GCD cost after rez in which to put up Protect. Sure, we could reduce Protect's duration so that isn't so 'cast once and forget about it until the target's death', but would that be any more... fun? At best, it'd give us some faint thing to do during downtime... while taking up valuable button space for a modest to-be-maintained defense bump.

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one, it would be better then just spamming glare glare glare all the time and be meaningful to keep not only people alive but actually reduce the damage taken which means less healing needed from you = more time to support and dps making it much more meaningful.

yes it will be more fun if you care about actually reducing damage and maintaining your defense buffs which gives you more stuff to do.

two, we already have that in bozja and eureka that you need to reapply buffs if you die, you can choose not to but its exist there.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Alternatively, if the "Protect" or "Shell" or "Reflect" that you wish to have honored are not meant to function as they did before, why call them that? And what becomes the issue with the likes of Stoneskin or Benison or any other means of protecting against, shelling against, or potentially even reflecting some more immediate and timely amount of damage? (Though, let's be clear: if anyone deserves a reflect, it would probably be SCH or, at a pinch, SGE, not WHM.)

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you can still have the same spell or effect either of them can apply or their core effect be used while still remaining true.
for example reflect can be used to also reflect healing effect to allies,
have protect as a trait for a defensive spell or maybe a trait for a healing spell or have a condition where it triggers and its an aura around you. you have different possibilites to make protect work in such a way that it stay true to its spell original purpose only executed differently.
as for why not just call them diffferent names, the answer is simple if you call them something different ,they are different.
you see the rename is a bluff cause the effect identical but none the less it does not change the fact that in the end it still a different skill/spell that is not related (look at protective barrier and aqua veil)

and no sge/sch don't necessary deserve to have reflect.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

What specifically is it from WHM's other iterations that you think WHM should uniquely lay claim to (in exclusive possession or in advantaged iteration), as opposed to SCH, SGE, or AST? Most of what exists in its previous iterations are not going to be "good and fit" in FFXIV, and merely 'having buffs' is not going to suddenly generate further WHM identity unless it goes some different way with them (which prior iterations can only differentiate as far longer duration and/or "less interesting than on SCH/AST/SGE").

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if it were a perfect world i would want him to have his defensive aspect more but if you want to claim something from past spells and iterations without ground breaking meta powerhouse and without me claiming to his buffs/debuffs since you dont want that then bout raises. past iterations could revive multiple people, could raise to full and even give a buff that auto raise and cause whm is considered the progging healer job, you can have him handle raising people better and faster like red mage does and keep all the other the same, have him raise them even to half/full hp cause if casting a defensive buff after death is wasteful surely casting a healing gcd/ogcd might be worth saving.

again you just need to think and you can find good stuff, just cause you dont like buffing people don't mean everyone like that.

again its just my thoughts on whm, you have your own but and again i can find value in certain stuff that you cannot and vise versa.

lets agree that whm simply deserve to be treated better and while we can agree to disagree about aspects of whm should or should not be in his identity ,the bottom line is we both like whm and want it to have better stuff then what EW will bring to him right now.

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Originally Posted by CrimsonGunner

one, it would be better then just spamming glare glare glare all the time and be meaningful to keep not only people alive but actually reduce the damage taken which means less healing needed from you = more time to support and dps making it much more meaningful.

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Let's not forget that the "it" there is merely having to reapply basic M. Defense, Phys. Defense, status-effect-specific immunity buffs, or element-specific resistance buffs. And if we're already so reluctant to spend a GCD on Lily casts that ultimately recoup three-quarters of their would-be offensive value, how fond do you really think WHMs are going to be of having to recast Protect once per 30 seconds, etc.?

It's not like the devs are going to allow a permanently maintainable buff to be powerful enough to be significant; at best, like Regen, it will merely save you a bit more than a GCD of healing per its duration, making it a slightly more efficient use of that GCD (but likely without Regen's instant-cast mobility or its ability to see significant use for apart from whichever will be MTing over Protect's duration).

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you can still have the same spell or effect either of them can apply or their core effect be used while still remaining true.

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...What is this supposed to mean? The spell, for all intents and purposes, is its effect. We, as a community, wouldn't call it Protect, still, if its effect was instead to provide a flat HP barrier. The devs could steal the name and even put it on an offensive weaponskill, theoretically, but it wouldn't be what the community knows as Protect.

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have protect as a trait for a defensive spell or maybe a trait for a healing spell or have a condition where it triggers and its an aura around you. you have different possibilites to make protect work in such a way that it stay true to its spell original purpose only executed differently.

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This sounds more feasible and interesting. Creating a Defense Up aura around yourself or your heal target would likely be a less broadly applicable (but also more interesting) version of WHM's old tendency to just having outright additional healing potency compared to other healers. That no longer sounds like Protect so much as Galvanize or Fluid Aura, but I can appreciate the theme.

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as for why not just call them diffferent names, the answer is simple if you call them something different ,they are different.

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...No. They're different when they work differently. The only thing different about Raise and Resurrection, for instance, aren't the skills themselves, but merely that Thin Air exists in the same kit as WHM-Raise and greater MP gen per minute exists in the one with SCH-Raise.

thin air will hopefully get fixed

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Originally Posted by AFuzzyMu11in

thin air will hopefully get fixed

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Very unlikely

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

Very unlikely

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"We believe that healers should get their thrill of job satisfaction from melding 3000 piety onto their gear"

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Let's not forget that the "it" there is merely having to reapply basic M. Defense, Phys. Defense, status-effect-specific immunity buffs, or element-specific resistance buffs. And if we're already so reluctant to spend a GCD on Lily casts that ultimately recoup three-quarters of their would-be offensive value, how fond do you really think WHMs are going to be of having to recast Protect once per 30 seconds, etc.?

It's not like the devs are going to allow a permanently maintainable buff to be powerful enough to be significant; at best, like Regen, it will merely save you a bit more than a GCD of healing per its duration, making it a slightly more efficient use of that GCD (but likely without Regen's instant-cast mobility or its ability to see significant use for apart from whichever will be MTing over Protect's duration).

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I feel like there's a couple ways that even within the context of 14 they could play around with getting stuff to sort of feel like the classical buffs while still making sense here, they'd just need to get creative and maybe have the effects be slightly overkill to compensate for eating GCDs, such that they'd make up for potential GCD attack/heals lost. An idea just came to me that might do stupid stuff in the context of savage, but could be fun to mess around with in normal dungeons/trials and at least illustrates the point.

So something like protect would be a single target GCD ability with a cooldown, probably in the minute range. Acts as a channeled ability that gives 40~50% damage reduction while it's active, with the MP cost to keep channeling it ramping up the longer it goes on. After the channeled effect ends, it'd give the target a Shell status that would grant a smaller 5~10% DR effect, with the duration of that scaling higher the longer you channeled the protect effect.

Reflect could work in a similar way too, I think. You'd probably knock down the DR granted to something more reasonable like 20~30, and rather than an after effect, whenever you ended the channel it'd do damage to any enemy that hit the target while it was active, either based on the amount of damage dealt, or the number or hits or the length of the reflect or w/e would be make the most sense or be easier to balance around.

Even re-raise wouldn't be too hard to do, I don't think, with a bit of inventiveness. Make it an instant cast spell you can only cast in combat, grants re-raise to the target. Whenever that target dies, it'd immediately refund the WHM enough MP to cast raise, and grant a short duration status that makes their next raise instant cast. I don't know how useful something like that might actually be but like... there's definitely *some* merit, especially with something like whitemage that's been a series staple since the very first game, in considering how they could potentially reconfigure classic abilities into something that could make sense for 14, especially if they're going to keep moving away from the lore's more shamanistic aspects and refuse to commit harder to making the lily system more interesting.

Considering how many problems the Thin Air change alone is causing, it really brings up some red flags for WHM as a whole.

I mean, let's look at AST in comparison on just the copy/pasted skills

WHM

1. Cure 2
   • 1000 MP
   • 2s Cast time
   • 700 potency
2. Regen
   • 500 MP
   • Potency: 200
   • Duration: 18s
3. Medica
   • 1000 MP
   • 2.5s Cast time
   • Potency:300
4. Medica 2
   • 1300 MP cost
   • 2.5s Cast time
   • Radius: 20y
   • Cure Potency: 200
   • Regen: 100
   • Duration: 15s

AST

1. Benefic 2
   • 700 MP
   • 2s Cast time
   • Potency: 700
2. Aspected Benefic
   
   • 400 MP
   • Cure Potency: 200
   • Regen Potency: 200
   • Duration: 15s
3. Helios
   • 700 MP
   • 2s Cast time
   • Potency: 330
4. Aspected Helios
   • 800 MP
   • 2s Cast time
   • Radius: 15y
   • Potency: 200
   • Regen: 100
   • Duration: 15s

In the overwhelming majority, AST equivalent skill was equal to or superior than WHM's in cost, potency and/or cast time. The lone exception was the Radius of Medica 2 over that of Aspected Helios but A.Helios is quicker to cast so both have a benefit over the other.

Bare minimum, WHM spells should cost the same as AST spells. There is 0 justification not to do that much. If Radius vs Cast time is a factor in balancing Medica 2 vs A.Helios, I will concede that the extra radius trumps the quicker cast time in 90% of situations so I can see Medica 2 having a slightly higher cost, 100-200 MP max but I would want Medica to be cheaper than Helios in that case because of both the faster cast and higher potency.

That alone takes off such a substantial burden for WHM in terms of their MP economy and that's only in the most basic toolkit department. There's a million other things that can be done to help out but this has already become pretty long so I'll stop there for now.

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Originally Posted by Icecylee

I feel like there's a couple ways that even within the context of 14 they could play around with getting stuff to sort of feel like the classical buffs while still making sense here, they'd just need to get creative and maybe have the effects be slightly overkill to compensate for eating GCDs, such that they'd make up for potential GCD attack/heals lost.

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Just don't forget the context, e.g., the other thematic spaces with whom WHM shares this role and the way fights, and the healing within them, actually occur in XIV.

Protect: External percentile single-target mitigation CD? Fair enough. You are absolutely not going to get a whopping "40-50% damage reduction" out of it, though, since that's already enough to act as more than a stacked Rampart and Sentinel/Nebula/Vengeance/Shadow Wall against a single tank-buster, even if you only maintain the cast for just the length of its animation lock. The drain cost over channel would be a non-issue for the way that'd work in practice.

Reflect: Now you're looking at two issues. First, you already have better claimants for the capacity (SCH, especially). Second, it ties your offensive potency-per-minute to defensive events. If significant (e.g., more so than Hissatsu:Seigan), how do you balance that?

Re-Raise: The version you suggested would be reasonably balanced, but also... pretty odd (and would probably need to be oGCD to react in time to events like "Well, that idiot's gonna bite it..."). Just for food for thought, though, think of the occasionally suggested auto-raise with no Weakness on target's next death (a la LB3). By avoiding weakness alone (even before factoring in desync), that's more than a 33.3% damage bonus for 90 seconds (as they'd be raised from 75% damage to 100%). That would be so brokenly good that, despite it's being horribly situational, you'd have to balance around it, leaving WHM with even more of a "WHM tax", whereby they're increasingly punished for not needing to bail out their party.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Just don't forget the context, e.g., the other thematic spaces with whom WHM shares this role and the way fights, and the healing within them, actually occur in XIV.

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Yeah, those are definitely all fair points, but the point was more that the ideas *could* still be repurposed and work, even if numbers would need balancing. The thinking with protect was along the lines of it being strong enough to not need to drop a big heal after the fact, but maybe that starts to step on the toes of barrier healers (and reflect, I guess, not that there's any real distinction between the two right now, but I suppose we can imagine a world in which there is!). Maybe instead you'd lean more into having something resembling a healing... maybe not rotation, but priority system. Protect could give a smaller heal and then a saner DR status effect that last in the 12~18 second range, that you could use in conjuncture with things like regen and other smaller heal + lingering effects, rather than just dropping massive chunks of HP once in a blue moon. If I had to fit it into the kit WHM has right now and not an entirely redesigned one that was better thought out, I'd probably make it a lily ability instead of of a normal spell so it'd mostly just be competing with cure2/medica analogues and have it be a better option to dump a lily on if you didn't need a big heal.

For reflect, well, if you balanced it to have the potential for high damage output that's theoretically what the cooldown would be for, and figuring out which tank busters get the most out of it would be part of what made the skill interesting, as long as the cooldown was long enough, so it wouldn't be fighting against w/e normal dps option you're spamming would be. Not like WHM has much going for it as is. But if that's too much of a concern, you could just do it like the new AST skill can keep it dps neutral, just with the damage backloaded instead of front.

As for the re-raise comments, I basically agree. It'd be a bit more usable and interesting as a ogcd! And yeah ways for it to ignore raise weakness would just bring back memories of 2.x with WHM having the superior version of protect due to the proshell trait and wouldn't be good for anyone, really.

In general I feel tho I feel like there's a *ton* of design space, especially for healers, that they're just... not exploring at all.

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Originally Posted by Icecylee

In general I feel tho I feel like there's a *ton* of design space, especially for healers, that they're just... not exploring at all.

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Agreed. I'd just rather build primarily upon what we've liked best of iterations within XIV.

For me, for instance, that's most involved the elemental aspects of its aesthetic. Imagine if...

• The potency re-couping element to healing spells weren't limited to Lily casts and its CD, but instead applied to all heals, through your Water-element spells (which all the Cures are, iirc, technically classified under) either feeding a Fluid Aura mechanic (by which to have a duplicate of yourself rush through enemies and/or allies, damaging and healing, interrupting or esuna-ing) or, say, building up a granular Attack Speed mechanic (call it Water's Wake or whatnot) which could be consumed for further burst, allowing WHM to essentially wind up through heals before burst phases and better milk damage windows.
• Every Stone-element spell charged or accelerated a Stoneskin (additionally capable of preventing most knockbacks [i.e., all but those that purge debuffs or are otherwise actually desireable]) or Rupture ability (ground-targeted, stuns, mitigation via line of sight vs. raid-wides and blocks LoS for normal enemy attacks).
• Every Wind-element spell caused your next spell to complete even if you move up to X seconds early, and you had a couple 3.5-second casts available to you by which to make use of that for saving uptime, too.
• If you could create motes of turbulent wind that could knock enemies back for damage or significantly accelerate allies as they move through them, or if your Aero spells cast through or near allies would give movement acceleration to them or allies moving along that path.
• Finally, let's say you'd have a... Soulfont ability by which you'd temporarily combine all the light-aspect elements into actually Holy spells, effectively gaining all those benefits at once as a burst phase, draining a gauge that's, say, typically maxed out in just over 2 minutes. In that way, Glare spam wouldn't feel like a mere 11111, but it'd at least be a burst phase, with Dia likely returned to an 18s duration and refreshed just before dropping out of phase.

That'd be something that we've already seen hinted at here in XIV, especially from the HW era, and would be vivid, integral, decently nuanced, capable of gameplay-affecting support -- not merely more +% damage, but something that requires more precise situations and, in balance, is capable of far more unique tricks.

That sounds suspiciously like *interesting* gameplay young lady. But answer me this: however will a poor new healer main, by virtue of role choice clearly too stupid to understand anything more complex than WHYT MAIG CAST CURR and MABBE CAST ROK BLASTT IF GROG REMIMBUR GROG HAV TWO BUTTUNZ understand how to play it? Gottem!

Absolutely. Honestly all of that seems fun, and I've always been more partial to the 1.x and 2/3.x versions of the class myself as well. I still remember me and another lore nerd being super confused when yoshida announced that CNJ was going to grab WHM and not BLM, lol. Wonder if at the time it made more sense since they were planning on making dual jobs for everyone and wanted to leave the elemental dps side open for a theoretical geomancer... ah, well.

I'd *really* like to see them go back to the more conjure lore flavored stuff instead of awkwardly shoving series legacy stuff into it... but if they're gunna do that anyway, they should lean into it even harder IMO. If we have to be White Mages running around doing nothing but slinging direct curess and blasting with holy magic, they should find a way to work in more of the iconic stuff, too, to at least make it feel complete instead of this weird halfassed thing we have now.

But if I had my way, WHM and SCH would get complete overhauls in how they were built from the ground up. I think AST kinda works for what it's going for conceptually as is, so it'd just need some minor adjustments and Sage is... probably a workable framework they could salvage, but at this point there's just so much wrong with WHM and SCH it's almost certainly going to be easier to just scrap everything and rebuild entirely rather than hoping some minor additions can change it much.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

That sounds suspiciously like *interesting* gameplay young lady. But answer me this: however will a poor new healer main, by virtue of role choice clearly too stupid to understand anything more complex than WHYT MAIG CAST CURR and MABBE CAST ROK BLASTT IF GROG REMIMBUR GROG HAV TWO BUTTUNZ understand how to play it? Gottem!

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Is there bad on good; no want good go dead? Blue buttons on good.

Want bad on bad, til bad go dead? Green buttons, then Brown buttons when green is there already. On bad, yeah.

White bar full? Press White button. It turn Green and Brown buttons white. Then can use white buttons on bad til white buttons gone. White buttons strong.

Grog know now? Grog good?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Let's not forget that the "it" there is merely having to reapply basic M. Defense, Phys. Defense, status-effect-specific immunity buffs, or element-specific resistance buffs. And if we're already so reluctant to spend a GCD on Lily casts that ultimately recoup three-quarters of their would-be offensive value, how fond do you really think WHMs are going to be of having to recast Protect once per 30 seconds, etc.?

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If the Devs really wanted Protect to have a place in this game it would be extremely easy to do.

Protect: Short duration, Short CD Physical Damage Taken Reduction Buff to all party members (or 1 person), similar to Reprisal or Feint but on Party members

Shell: Short duration, Short CD Magic Damage Taken Reduction Buff to all party members (or 1 person), similar to Addle but on Party members

Make them role actions so every healer has access to them.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Make them role actions so every healer has access to them.

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You had me until this part.
Why can't WHM have something unique for itself?